As many as 52,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America have arrived at the U.S. border since October, 2013 with the possibility of another 60,000 arriving before the end of this year. In this Ground Truth Briefing, three experts on the ground in Central America will discuss this developing crisis.

On Tuesday, June 17th the Africa Program at The Wilson Center held a public event to examine growing religious violence in sub-Saharan Africa and the response from African states, as well as options for US-Africa engagement regarding the current situation with religious conflict. Discussants included Dr. Ludovic Lado, a current Southern Voices Scholar with the Africa Program and Director of the Institute of Human Rights and Dignity at the Center of Research and Action for Peace in Cote d’Ivoire, and Tiffany Lynch, Senior Policy Analyst at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Dr. Monde Muyangwa, Director of the Africa Program at The Wilson Center, moderated the discussion.

Have we returned to the zero-sum game mentality from our Cold War past? Did we ever leave it? Or is this some kind of deep freeze with the Russians? And just how cold (or hot) is it going to get? Join us as three veteran analysts, practitioners, and scholars of Russia and the U.S.-Russian relationship discuss and debate these issues in this latest National Conversation.

There is a clear trend of terrorist "migration" to online social media, including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. This new arena of open and social systems presents new challenges and requires dramatic shifts in strategic thinking regarding national security and countering terrorism.

The transatlantic relationship, particularly from the German perspective, has been under great stress for almost a year due to revelations about U.S. foreign surveillance. Now the crisis with Ukraine and Russia threatens to add more strain. As voices in the U.S. and NATO call for a stronger response to Russia, Germany--with its preference for diplomatic over military instruments and its deep trade ties with Russia--is faced with hard choices. The transatlantic partnership remains crucial on these and other issues, such as the Middle East peace process, Iranian nuclear policy, and the challenge from China.

Power politics seem to be back in Europe, pulling the U.S.-Russian relationship back into a standoff reminiscent of the Cold War. Despite renewed confrontation over Ukraine, the US and Russia still have fundamentally compatible views on threats such as transnational crime, terrorism, proliferation of WMD and sensitive technologies, man-made disasters, piracy, illegal cyber activity, drug trafficking, and climate change. What is in store for U.S.-Russian cooperation on these challenges in the wake of the Ukraine crisis? Is a common security agenda vis-à-vis these threats still possible?